John van Dijk - THE ZOO

The small cluster of men gathered closer - they didn’t want to miss this. Happy was known for his relatively short fuse.

"Well now," said Happy, blowing out a perfect smoke ring, "guess I do at that.

It’s real simple, actually. Sam listens to conversations from Outer Space. You might say she’s got sort of a high security job."

Mink snorted unattractively. "Jesus, Hap, what have you been smoking in that damn pipe of yours? You really expect us to believe that fairy story?" All the men laughed at Mink’s clever repartee.

"Don’t really give a rat’s ass what you boys believe." Grumbled Happy as he got to his feet. "People used to think hot-air baloons were a fairy tale, too, I expect ‘til one dropped in on them. Come on, boy, we’ve had enough socializing."

Silently, the men watched Happy and Spike head down the road. Just as they disappeared out of sight around a corner, Mink said, "Christ, Hap’s getting crazier all the time."

No one disagreed with him.

Happy knew better than to even try to keep up with Spike. The dog eagerly dove in and out of bushes all the way home chasing anything that moved from butterflies to rabbits.

Happy was deeply troubled. There was simply no getting around the truth of that.

It was an uncomfortable feeling for him. He had spent a good part of his life determined never to succumb to worry. Happy considered it a futile waste of time.

Like paying the rent before it was even due. He’d always believed that you should wait and worry when there was something to damn well worry about. Like now, he thought.

Starting to get winded, he paused for a moment on the path, leaning heavily on his walking stick. Without really seeing it, he gazed out at the choppy, gray waters of the Atlantic. Sudden gusts of wind were making white caps in all directions.

It had taken him a few days, but he’d finally remembered what had happened that night. Guess the mind can only take so much than it sort of shuts down, Happy thought. But, a little bit at a time, the memory had returned to him. Slowly at first, then in one rushing flood of recollection. He couldn’t have stopped it if he had wanted to. God, he wished he hadn’t remembered. Now he knew he should be doing something about it, but what? Who’d believe his story, anyway?

But even as he asked the question, Happy knew the answer. Whistling to Spike, he abruptly changed his course for Sam’s house.

"To what do I owe this honor?" Sam grinned at her old friend as she opened the front door widely. But her smile quickly faded as she gazed into Happy’s serious and drawn face.

"What’s wrong, Hap?" she asked as she joined him on the porch.

"I need to talk with you, Sam. And I guess I’d like you to let me finish having my say before you speak." At Sam’s amiable nod, he continued. "Something happened to Spike and me the other night ..... something that I want to tell you about."

Sam tried to wait patiently while Happy shuffled his feet and tried to decide where best to start. Sighing heavily, he sank down onto the top step, nervously crunching his cap between his knotty, arthritic fingers. She took a seat beside him.

Encouragingly, Sam asked, "What is it, Hap? You seem really upset." She absent mindedly patted Spike, who had flopped down beside her.

Taking a deep breath, Happy, seeing no other way, jumped in with both feet. "I had a visitor last week, Sammy. You might say a real unexpected visitor," he paused for a moment, "from someplace far away."

Sam narrowed her eyes as she peered suspiciously up at Happy beside her. "How unexpected?" She couldn’t figure out where Happy was going with this conversation.

"Well," he mumbled uncomfortably, "to tell the truth, I’m not real sure where it was from."

"Can you at least tell me what "It" was ?" asked Sam, feeling herself becoming annoyed at his reticense.

"It was a flying machine of some kind." he replied.

"You mean an airplane?" Sam laughed. At the negative shake of Happy’s head, she continued, trying unsuccessfully to control her heightening irritation. "Or perhaps a helicopter. Maybe the National Guard is playing war games out of Bangor again."

"Nope, it wasn’t anything like that. Besides, it wasn’t one of ours." Happy stated flatly.

Sam’s eyes widened. "Well, if it wasn’t one of ours than just who’s the hell was it?"

"That’s just it .... I’m not sure. Never seen anything like this before."

At last, completely exasperated, Sam snapped, "Okay, Happy, I bite. Where the hell do you think it was from?"

Sitting up straight, Happy looked her directly in the eye and blurted out earnestly, "Outer Space."

"Hap?" questioned Sam, certain that she had misunderstood him.

"I said from Outer Space, goddamn it!" he cried belligerently. " First, I thought it was just a small plane, you know, flying in way too low over the bay.

But it kept coming and coming and all of a sudden it was just there ..... sort of hovering like ..... right in front of me, clear as day. It seemed to send a kind of beam out to me ...... like a green light or something. I’ve never seen a light like that before - it sort of reached out and wrapped me up in it. Spike, too. No matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t get away from it. Jesus, it was so bright I felt like it was going right through me." Happy paused to take a shaky breath. He looked over at Sam. She didn’t so much as blink.

"Anyway, next thing I remember was being inside this thing. Don’t ask me how I got there - couldn’t tell you for the life of me. All I know is that one minute Spike and I are standing on the bluff minding our own business and the next we’re in this ....... big, metal thing!"

Sam sat stiffly beside her friend. All of a sudden, she was finding it difficult to breath.

Happy continued, "Funny thing was, I find I’m not alone. There were others there, too. Jesus, they were tall bastards. But that’s not all, Sammy." Happy choked back what sounded suspiciously like a sob. His gnarled hands were rigorously shaking now and the tattered cap fell unheeded to the porch floor.

Here it comes, thought Sam. She knew with certainty what he was going to say next. As if she’d wished the very words out of his mouth, Happy spoke in a voice filled with undisguised agony.

"They didn’t have faces, Sammy! Swear to Christ!" Happy buried his head in both hands as if that motion would help to erase the dreadful memory from his mind.

Sam tried to speak, to offer Happy some sort of solace. But no words came. She felt as if she suddenly needed to fight for every breath she took. Inside her head, her mind was screaming, "It was real! It was real!"

Tears started to trail down her cheeks. the salty taste of them seeping through her lips seemed to help snap her out of her trance-like state.

"Happy!" Sam clutched him by his faded flannel shirt, roughly pulling him to his feet. "I know! I know! It’s okay, I believe you!" She was both laughing and crying at then same time. Happy stared at her in astonishment.

"What do you mean, ‘You know’?" he asked suspiciously, trying to regain his footing by grabbing hold of the porch railing.

"I’ve seen them! These ..... beings. I’ve been with them, too. And the light, Happy! My God, it’s just like you describe it ...... it’s so powerful. It’s all encompassing!" Sam gripped his arms as she spoke. "Happy, I lost my child to them ..... and there’s been no one to believe me! No one I could talk with about any of this."

Awkwardly, her elderly friend put his arm about her shoulders. Happy was long unaccustomed to any form of compassionate contact. The sympathetic gesture felt totally foreign to him.

"Did they hurt you?" While you were with them, were you ..... hurt in any way?"